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Research Protocol (Draft) (Proposed title) Young people's experiences of (some) social institutions Rationale: It has been suggested that a feature of the current state of contemporary culture in modem societies is the growing disaffection of certain groups (including young people) with regard to the main institutional frameworks - the family, schools, the state, its political institutions, religion, marriage, science. They either do not hold the values that used to underpin social institutions and/ or choose not to participate in them. As Paul Willis (1990) suggests, young people have found other areas of life where they can engage in creative and enjoyable activities, especially in the sphere of everyday life. Other authors suggest that the social system (or society) has let young people down by putting them on the margins of society. Society has rendered them powerless, criminalizing them and sometimes even threatening their physical conditions of existence (e.g. Roche & Tucker, 1997). So far, I know of one large project carried out in Colombia, under the title ATLANTIS (Alzate, et. al., 1995; Parra and de Roux, 1995; Castaeda, 1995; Parodi, 1995; Durn and Ramrez, 1995), which confirms some of the above assertions, specifically with regards to the relationships that adolescents have with their schools. The above description is open to critical evaluation. For instance, we could think of examples of young people who adhere to conventional values and successfully take part in institutionalised forms of social life. So, it seems relevant to try to see if young people are in fact marginalized from institutional life and to what extent. (Details of)The study I intend to use a body of twenty-one interviews that were carried out by an equal number of second- year psychology students with young people, aimed at collecting accounts of experiences involving social institutions, as part of their course work in a social psychology practical. The interviewers did not provide the interviewees with any definition of what were to be regarded as social institutions. So, it was left to the interviewees to interpret this term and choose an experience which would be of interest to the interviewer. Other materials will include observational data collected by means of ethnographic techniques by Durn & Ramrez (1995). References AIzate, G., Bonillia, E., Cajio, F., Camargo, M., Castaeda, E., Cobos, F., Gafaro, M., Garcia, M. L., Iriarte, G., Parodi, M. L. & Parra, R. (1995). La cultura fracturada. Proyecto AtIntida: Estudio sobre el adolescente escolar en Colombia. [Fractured culture. Project Atlantis: A study of adolescents at school in Colombia]. Vol. 1. Bogota & Fes-Coldencias-TM. Castaeda, E. (ed.) (1995). La ciudad nos habita. Proyecto AtIdntida: Estudio sobre el adolescente escolar en Colombia. [The city inhabits us. Project Atlantis: A study of adolescents at school in Colombia]. Vol. I. Bogot: Fes- Coldencias-TM. Durn, R. del P. and Ramrez, M. (1995). Adolescentes colombianos: Antologa de historias y testimonios. [Colombian adolescents: An antology of histories and testimonies.] Bogot: Fes-Colciencias-TM.

Parodi, M. L. (ed.) (1995). El silencio era una fiesta. Proyecto Atlntida: Estudio sobre el adolescente escolar en Colombia. [Silence was the party. Project Atlantis: A study of adolescents at school in Colombia]. Vol. IV. Bogot: Fes-Colciencias-TM. Parra, R. and de Roux, A. I. (Eds). (1995). Todo lo que nos gusta se evapora. Proyecto Atlntida: Estudio sobre el adolescente escolar en Colombia. Vol. H. Bogot: FesColciencias-TM. Roche, Jeremy & Tucker, Stanley (eds.) (1997). Youth in society. Milton Keynes / London: Open University / Sage. Willis, Paul E. (1990).Common culture : symbolic work at play in the everyday cultures of the young. Buckingham: Open University Press.